During my participation in India Week held in Fiji in 2003, I was asked by the late Dr Ahmed Ali to find out why the 60 per cent percent of the indentured Indians transported to Fiji under the indenture system (now commonly known as Girmit system from the word agreement), remained in Fiji. Approximately 60,500 young men, women and children were transported to Fiji, and approximately 25,000 had returned to India.
That little request from late Dr Ali acted as a catalyst for me to embark on a quest to find out why the remaining Fiji Girmityas remained in Fiji, instead of returning to their homes in India as per the indenture agreement (Girmit) on which they were made to put their thumbprint without having ability to read a word of it because the agreements were written in English and the Girmityas had no knowledge of reading or understanding English language.
Two years later I started my professional PhD at Western Sydney University, to research on my thesis that the remaining Girmityas did not return to India because they were prevented from doing so. In 2011 the university accepted that the majority of the Fiji Girmityas were prevented from returning India by the Colonial Government of Fiji and the Colonial Sugar Refining Company of Australia to ensure continued supply of cheap Indian labour in Fiji after the indenture system was eventually abolished. I presented my thesis in written form as well as a documentary drama and the university granted me Doctor of Creative Arts for my efforts in mid-2011.
In 2017, as I was preparing to go to Delhi, India, to attend a conference on the 100th anniversary of the abolition of Indian indenture system, I happen to watch a video of Dr Sashi Tharoor talking on British TV about his latest book An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India. This video has since gone viral on the social media, especially among the global Indian community.
I had watched Dr Tharoor speaking eloquently about many other atrocities that British had unleashed on India and the Indians. However, I had not seen him speak anything about the 1.2 million Girmityas, who were also victims of the British colonialism and atrocities.
With this apprehension in mind, I met him at his Delhi office where we had a pleasant discussion over a nice cup of masala chai. Within first few minutes of our meeting my apprehensions proved unfound for when I was told that Dr Tharoor has indeed written about the indentured Indians. With that came the offer that he would be glad to speak about them if and when he was invited by me to do so. An offer that I had taken up and would very soon get him to speak about the plight of Girmityas under the British colonial rule.
The next day I bought the book from a little book stall at the Delhi train station just before I boarded a train headed to Lucknow. I searched for the section where Dr Tharoor wrote about the Indian indenture system. Under the heading Forced Migration, Transportation and Indentured Labour he devoted five pages to this issue in a 317-page book. I was a little disappointed that he did not devote more pages to this subject. However, after reading through these five pages, I was exhilarated that what he had written basically complemented what I had written in my doctoral thesis way back in 2011.
It is my opinion, to discuss the Indian indenture (Girmit) system in isolation from the overall British and other European countries’ colonial designs, that saw the sun never set on the empire in its heydays, as almost a sin! Any understanding of Girmit needs a thorough understanding of why and how the African, Indian, Chinese and convict labour transportation and exploitation was crucial to the economic viabilities of these colonialists; once they had acquired the lands in the Caribbean, Americas, Australia, South Africa and other islands through unparalleled genocides.
However, for this little article, I believe Dr Tharoor’s short few pages in his book goes a long way to support my thesis that the majority of Girmityas were exiled in the Girmit colonies. I have provided sufficient proof of that in Fiji’s case. It remains to be seen if the same kind of studies is ever done in the other former Girmit colonies.
In Fiji’s case, it can be stated that, by preventing the 60 percent of the Girmityas from returning home to India, their recruiters had breached one of the fundamental conditions of the indenture agreement.
It remains to be tested in the court of law!
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